The Telegraph understands that among those identified on the list are Daniel Bayes, a drug dealer who is now in Venezuela; Michael Lee, who was convicted of possessing more than 300 weapons at his house in Devon; three bankers facing major fraud allegations; and a man once dubbed London’s “number two computer crook”.

A series of other accounts containing six-figure deposits are also registered to modest addresses in relatively poor parts of the country.

The bank is legally obliged to report to the authorities any suspicions about the source of money deposited in its accounts.

HM Revenue and Customs is now understood to be trawling through a list of the names and addresses of more than 4,000 people based in Britain who had bank accounts at HSBC in Jersey.

This work is expected to lead to the identification of hundreds of people who are evading tax as the accounts have not been previously disclosed.

On Thursday night, a spokesman for HMRC said: “We can confirm we have received the data and we are studying it. We receive information from a very wide range of sources which we use to ensure the tax rules are being respected.

“Clamping down on those who try to cheat the system through evading taxes and over claiming benefits is a top priority for us and we value the information we receive from the public and business community.”

The information obtained by HMRC is thought to be the biggest data leak identifying holders of offshore accounts ever obtained by the British tax authorities.